What the Heck is “Common Core”?

If you are a full-time educator, you’ve no doubt heard a lot about the Common Core Standards being created to guide classroom curricula in Math and English. But if you are a substitute educator or paraprofessional, you may have only heard the term in passing, without understanding the full significance of it.

Well…it’s pretty darned significant, actually. Let’s get to the heart of the matter: States vs. Federal.

Throughout American history there has been a challenge — an ongoing debate, really — about the balance between States’ rights and Federal rights. We do allow states to have differing laws that reflect the desires and attitudes of their residents. In a country as large as the United States, there can be very differing opinions on important topics! And then there are Federal laws. These are laws that are universal to the entire country. At times, these can actually be in opposition to one another and things get a little confusing.

Enter the Common Core Standards. The promise of a free (tax-payer supported) education to all children in America is a Federal (read: national) promise. BUT, it’s enacted at the state and local level. For a century, states have been setting their own educational standards for their students.

What is an educational “standard”? If you’ve completed our “Instructional Strategies” course(s), then you’ve learned about Lesson Plans. All Lesson Plans begin with an educational “standard” such as the one listed below (an example New York state Science standard).

Science Learning Standard

Standard 4

Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science.

These standards include more specific breakdowns of key ideas and performance indicators, but you get the general idea. The “standards” delineate exactly what we want students to know, understand, or demonstrate as a result of the lessons(s). Your lesson(s) has to end up with the outcome of students achieving this standard.

But when you give these state standards thought a few things should occur to you:

1. There is probably a lot of redundancy, right? Right. Many states have standards that are very, very similar. So why do we need 50 different standards for the same thing?
2. Where there are differences, some students may not be held to the same standard as others, depending on the state in which they reside.

The second issue is one that has long been a point of contention in the United States, “Why should one student get an arguably ‘better’ or more rigorous education than another, just because he/she lives in a specific state?” Now, there are many, many other factors affecting a student’s education besides state educational standards (such as local taxes and funding). But one area in which we could start to eliminate “gaps” in students’ education from state to state, AND increase efficiency is by creating FEDERAL educational standards.

That is the basis for the Common Core Standards. In an era when we are all connected not only to the internet, but to each other, there is less need for separate standards. If the promise of an education in the United States is Federal, why shouldn’t the educational standards be as well?

If you visit the website devoted to the Common Core Standards — www.corestandards.org — you will find this text:

Building on the excellent foundation of standards states have laid, the Common Core State Standards are the first step in providing our young people with a high-quality education. It should be clear to every student, parent, and teacher what the standards of success are in every school.

Teachers, parents and community leaders have all weighed in to help create the Common Core State Standards. The standards clearly communicate what is expected of students at each grade level. This will allow our teachers to be better equipped to know exactly what they need to help students learn and establish individualized benchmarks for them. The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades, thus enabling teachers to take the time needed to teach core concepts and procedures well—and to give students the opportunity to master them.

With students, parents and teachers all on the same page and working together for shared goals, we can ensure that students make progress each year and graduate from school prepared to succeed in college and in a modern workforce.

At this time there are 45 states that have adopted the Common Core standards, meaning that if you are teaching a lesson today, it is very likely that the lesson is written to the Common Core Standard (or soon will be). The adoption has been recent and educators are still learning the standards and adapting their curricula, however, ANYONE can go review the standards at: www.corestandards.org

Though there are critics of the Common Core Standards, with so many states adopting the Common Core standards, it seems likely that the trend of federal-level standardization of educational standards and curricula will continue.

Savvy substitute teachers would do well to review the standards in their free time to get an idea of what the “shape” of education will be in the 21st Century. Just because you aren’t usually writing the lessons doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to understand the standard that a lesson is intended to meet.

In our next blog post, we’ll explore the way that TECHNOLOGY will play a role in testing associated with the new standards.

[tags] Common Core Standards, substitute teachers, classroom technology, Common Core Math Standards, Common Core English Language standards, EDTrainingCenter [/tags]